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Society of Petroleum Engineers
Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl
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 EOR – The Time is Now
Its Contribution to World Oil Supply

Paul L. Bondor

Society of Petroleum Engineers

Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl
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 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)
– The Time is Now
Churchill once said:
“the best time to plant a tree is twenty years
ago. The second best time is now.”

In E & P, the best time to plan and begin

implementation of EOR is during original
development planning.

The second best time is Now!

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 Outline
• Status and potential of EOR
• Why EOR?
• What’s new – Technical
• Why now?
• Planning for EOR
• EOR Opportunities and Challenges
– Both offshore and onshore
– Economic
– Political
• Summary

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 World Oil Production Forecast (IEA) 2008

• 74 million b/d of capacity additions needed by 2030

• 5 million b/d is forecast to be supplied by additional EOR in
2030
• 20 million b/d is from “fields yet to be found” 5
 World Oil Production Forecast (IEA) 2010

• 70 million b/d of capacity additions needed by 2030

• Additional EOR not included as a separate category
• 20 million b/d is from “fields yet to be found”
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 World Conventional Oil In-Place,
~ 9 Trillion Barrels

Other Non - OPEC : 2.9 OPEC Middle East: 2.6

32% 29%

US : 0.9
Other OPEC : 2.6
10%
29%

Of the 9 trillion barrels in place, ~ 1.1 trillion barrels has been consumed.
33% recovery efficiency
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EOR target of 2.2 trillion barrels in discovered fields!
 US EOR Production since 1986:
~ 6.4 billion barrels!
800
Chemical/Polymer
700

600 Gas: includes

CO2, Hydrocarbon, Nitrogen, Flue
Gas, other
500
MBO/

400

300

Thermal
200

100

0
1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

U.S. EOR production is ~12% of the U.S. total

Two major contributors:

Thermal recovery using steam injection 8
From OGJ biennial surveys Carbon dioxide miscible recovery
 EOR Production outside the US since
1998: ~ 5.5 billion barrels!
1400

Chemical / Polymer Gas: includes CO2, Hydrocarbon,

1200 Flue Gas, Other

1000

800
MBO/

600

400 Thermal

200

0
1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

Thermal recovery in Venezuela, Indonesia, China, Canada.

Gas injection in Canada, Venezuela, and Libya
Chemical/polymer applications in China. 9
From OGJ biennial surveys
EOR Methods Based on Lithology
This plot is based on 1507 worldwide projects

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Source: SPE 130113, Manrique E., et al; April 2010
 Why EOR?
• Access to new exploration acreage is difficult
and expensive
• There is significant oil in place in discovered
reservoirs that will otherwise not be
recovered
• EOR can make an important contribution to
world oil supply in the long term
• EOR economics can be attractive
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 EOR Today
• Mature technologies:
– Thermal
– CO2 miscible
• Technologies with unrealized potential:
– Chemical
– Polymer
– Combustion
• Barriers:
– Long lead times
– Economics
– Politics

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 Not your Grandfather’s EOR (1)
What is new in Mobility Control:
Polymers:
• PetroChina has made significant advances in the design and
manufacture of polymers
– Narrow range of molecular weights
– Tailored to application
– Can be applied economically in lower permeability formations
• In-depth diversion technology
– Thermally activated plugging agents
• Foams
– Advances in the laboratory

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 Not your Grandfather’s EOR (2)

What is new in Chemical Flooding:

• Advances in surfactants:
– Thermally stable surfactants (e.g., sulphonates) remove
temperature restrictions
– Surfactants designed to be active at 0.1% concentrations
– Sacrificial agents (e.g., sodium carbonate) reduce adsorption to
very low levels
• Alkaline flooding:
– Alkaline-polymer (AP) and alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) are
new, lower-cost EOR methods

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 Not your Grandfather’s EOR (3)
What is new in Thermal Recovery:
• Controlled Combustion –THAI (Toe to Heel Air Injection)
– Removes depth, pressure restrictions of steam
– Applicable to light oils

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 Not your Grandfather’s EOR (4)
What is new in Thermal Recovery:
• Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD)
– Uses horizontal wells to contact formation, reduce well costs
– Modification of steam drive

production
well
injection
well

heated oil steam rises

and to interface
condense
d water

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 What’s New in Tools and Techniques (1)

More efficient
project design
and
management is
possible using:

Real-time information gathering, analysis …

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 What’s New in Tools and Techniques (2)

Horizontal wells …

Smart wells, multilateral wells …

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What’s New in Tools and Techniques (3)
Permanent downhole monitoring using fiber optics
– pressure, temperature, multiphase flow rate …

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What’s New in Tools and Techniques (4)

4-D seismic …

Etc, etc …
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 Promising Technologies
• Microbial EOR
• Nanotechnologies
– Smart tracers
– Delivery of materials
– Detailed reservoir description
• Down-hole steam generation
 Why Now?

• Design and implementation of an EOR

project takes time
• After implementation (especially as a
tertiary project) production response
does not occur immediately

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Steps to a Successful EOR Project (1)

• Field selection
– Successful secondary?
• A water-based EOR process will go where the
waterflood water went
– In-place target
• Is there sufficient remaining oil in place to
justify an EOR project?
Steps to a Successful EOR Project (2)

• Process selection: what is the

objective?
– Improved sweep efficiency
• Overcome reservoir heterogeneities or poor
mobility ratio
– Improved displacement efficiency
• Is the objective to recover a residual oil
saturation in a swept zone?
 Steps to a Successful EOR Project (3)
Reservoir Engineering Data Economics
Modeling
Field Selection
EOR Process
Analog Data Selection Screening

Geologic Studies
Analytic
Tools
Time

Design Parameters
Lab Data (R&D)
Coarse Field Date
Simulation
Pilots / Field
Testing Detailed
Fine
Economic
Simulation
Models
Project
Implementation
 Pilot Testing

• Use to reduce critical uncertainties

• Most expensive, most time-consuming
• Design with specified objectives
– Oil-in-the-tank not sufficient
– Profitable pilot usually unrealistic
• Need dedicated personnel

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 Types of Pilot Test
Single Well Mini-Test
obs
inj

ROS Determination + Build oil bank

Injectivity + Vertical, Areal conformance

Confined Five-Spot
Single Five-Spot
prod

+ Displacement efficiency
+ Sweep efficiency
+ Redundancy
+ Operations experience 27
+ Improved capture efficiency
 EOR Project Time Line

Field Selection

Process Selection

Geologic Studies

Design Parameters

Pilot Testing

Implementation

Initial Response

0 2 4 6 8 10
Years

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 EOR Potential
Opportunity:
• Target resource for EOR applications is 6 trillion barrels, of the 9
trillion initially in place

• Widespread application could far exceed the current forecasts

• Chemical / polymer flooding has large unrealized potential

• Both hydrocarbon and CO2 miscible flooding have large potential

internationally

• A significant resource exists in the offshore, as well as onshore

• CO2 sequestration may provide an additional impetus and

opportunity

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 EOR Challenges

However, there are significant challenges:

• Application Onshore:
– old wells,
– commingled wells,
– reservoir understanding

• Application Offshore:
– large well spacing,
– logistics,
– reservoir understanding

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 Economics Challenges
• Thermal:
– Greenhouse gas emissions

– Combustion - perceived high risk

• Chemical – Polymer
– Long lead times, long payout

– Perceived high risk

• CO2 Miscible
– Access to CO2

However: Long term demand and price increases

present opportunities!
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 Political Opportunities

• NOC, IOC, Governmental Relationships can

harm EOR opportunities:
– Mutual interests are hampered by short-term
considerations, different objectives

• Solution: treat EOR differently!

– Jointly share technical, economic risk
– Revise concession terms to include life-of-project for
EOR

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 CO2 Sequestration
Finally, carbon capture initiatives may present an
economic opportunity for increased recovery

• Joint industry-government efforts to gather CO2 for

sequestration
– Examples: North Sea, U.S. GOM, Middle East
• Large volume in developed fields in the subsurface
• Opportunity for collection of CO2 (power plants, petrochemical
facilities), delivery to offshore fields

• These opportunities may not be practical for an

individual oil company, but are feasible with a joint
industry-government approach

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 North Sea Example (1)

H. Agustsson,StatoilHydro, SPE ATCE 2008, Denver 34

 North Sea Example (2)

H. Agustsson,StatoilHydro, SPE ATCE 2008, Denver 35

 Summary
• EOR Technologies exist that reduce project technical
risk
• EOR can make a much more significant contribution
to world oil supply than is currently forecast
• EOR is a long-term business
• Cooperation between IOCs and NOCs can result in
mutual benefits
• CO2 sequestration presents an additional E&P
opportunity

The second best time to plan and begin

implementation of EOR is Now!
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